Volume 3, Number 1 - Space and Missile Defense Command - U.S. ...

Demystifying
Global Strike
By LTC Richard Wolfe
What is global strike? By now we have all heard the question
or asked it ourselves, but the answer to that questions
depends on whom you ask. Some think global strike is nothing
more than a passing fad in defense ideology. Others say
it’s the assimilation of existing capabilities into an expedited
mission. Ask more people and they say it’s the future of
American defense.
Global strike is a new mission given to U.S. Strategic
Command in 2002 with the major changes in the Unified
Command Plan. The mission statement for global strike
reads: “Global strike will deliver kinetic and non-kinetic effects on
targets with a minimum of planning time and for limited duration.”
But what does global strike mean? In essence, global
strike integrates several critical elements of future warfighting.
These elements include powerful, deep strikes, across great
distances, with conventional rather than nuclear weapons
(conventional strategic strike), and using Space to disrupt
enemy information systems including computers and satellites
(information disruption). Together, these elements form
the core of a “global strike” capability. Ideally, global strike
can carry out military action designed to preempt an enemy
from attacking the United States or our allies. Global strike
could prohibit the enemy from taking actions that are counter
to our interests, such as engaging in the support or aid of
terrorists or making weapons of mass destruction.
Global strike is an essential part of the doctrine of preemption
issued by the Bush administration in Sept. 2002
in the National Security Document. In a speech made to
West Point in the summer of 2003, President Bush said, “If
we wait for threats to fully materialize, we have waited too
long.”
As U.S. Strategic Command began planning for the global
strike mission area, it grappled with the myriad of issues
surrounding how to proceed, with pre-emptive strikes being
one issue. With initial strike capabilities having been centered
on bomber strikes and Tomahawk Land Attack Missile
missions, some of the regional combatant commanders, or
RCCs, asked why they needed Strategic Command’s direction.
This led to some confusion on the part of the RCCs.
While it is true that the RCCs have formidable arsenals at
their disposal and know the troops under their command
best, this is not a case of capacity. Global strike is all about
speed.
Speedy strikes mean we must have plans and systems
thought through ahead of time and appropriately documented
and accessible. It means the joint forces must be trained
in advance. The need to take swift and decisive action upon
the identification of a threat is paramount.
In cases when the threat is identified before the enemy
acts against us, diplomatic, informational and economic
courses of action are made with increasing speed because we
now have information access and situational awareness at a
moment’s notice. But how fast is fast enough for our military
options to act?
In the weeks that followed Sept. 11, 2001, planning
timelines frustrated the Department of Defense as they
often spanned several months. Global strike is designed to
eliminate these delays by preplanning multiple target sets
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Army Space Journal Winter/Spring 2004